Tag: production platform

After a couple days of impact from Hurricane Harvey, the storm was due to drop another 6 feet of floodwaters on Texas. Tim Duncan assisted his wife, 6 year old son, and two dogs into the FEMA rescue boat. Duncan is the 45 year old CEO of Talos Energy. For four months he had already been working on a $2.5 billion merger of Tlaos Energy with Stone Energy. He was taking a big risk, but it would make his company public without the expenses of holding a public offering. He felt he couldn’t let the flood stop him from finalizing the deal. He took his family to Alabama, and once they were settled in, he flew back to Texas to camp out at his parent’s high and dry home to get his work done. He spent weeks after dinner negotiating the deal from his mother’s dining room. In May when the merger is complete, Talos will replace Stone’s place in the public market with a new ticker: TALO. This move makes Duncan the leader of an oil company with profits of $900 million. The majority of Talo’s assets will be in the Gulf of Mexico. This new company is capable of producing 48,000 barrels of oil per day, and plans to produce much more.

Never Feeling Hopeless

Duncan is an inspiration. He grew up in Egypt, Florida and Texas and sounds like a New Yorker when he speaks. The Hurricane hit at a time Duncan was at the peak of his negotiations with bondholders, money managers, and principal owners of Talos’ equity. The negotiations of the deal were already a challenge without the impact of Harvey. Duncan was able to make the most of a bad situation. This isn’t his first time dealing with a crisis. In 2005 Talo’s biggest asset had about 6 wells with a production platform attached to the seafloor when Hurricane Rita capsized the 13,000 ton platform. Talos was there for cleanup and now uses the location to pump 16,000 barrels daily into a special ship. Duncan’s house in Kingwood Texas was submerged for three days in floodwaters covering the entire first level. It has now been gutted down to the studs. He is facing this challenge in stride as well. He says now he enjoys making a way where everyone else doesn’t believe you can.